Post by Woo on Dec 7, 2013 17:48:06 GMT -6

Well we have a WWE, TNA and all purpose European thread, so I figured why not have one to discuss Joshi. Ever since I returned from Shimmer and speaking to Sureshot about Hikuru Shida I've been a bit obsessed with Joshi wrestling. I recently bought Firepro Wrestling Returns on the US PSN store after finding a user-created Joshi pack for it (I even had to create a US account as the game was never released in Britain!) and have watched lots of old and new wrestling from the land of the rising Sun.

Aja Kong, Manami Toyota, Dynamite Kansai, Inoue, Inoue and Dump Matsumoto being the surprise 8th member. Yep count me in! Sadly time hasn't been kind to some of our legends (I didn't think Toyota looked good and thought the Kyoko matches were a mess), but others like Takako, Kansai, Satumura (who I hadn't seen before) were still good and Bolshi (who I also had never seen, but had read bad reviews of) looked fantastic.

As for the younger team Hikura Shida we all know is fantastic and it was odd to see her play a heel, though it makes perfect sense (why else would she have a kendo stick?), Manami Katsu sadly only had one match, but I still think that girl has tons of potential. Iroha was basically just squashed by Dump and Kyoko so I can't judge her here. Syuri looked good in a valiant attempt to wrestle an unmotivated looking Kyoko and Sareee had as good a 4 minute match as you can have against Bolshi.

I couldn't really judge Kagetsu and Yoshida as the video I watched had constant AIM noises going off on the background which took me out of it totally. Yuhi seemed to get a lot of stick online due to her big push and her winning three matches, but I've got to say she looked superb.

So any fans of Sendai, Stardom, JWP, Oz, Ice Ribbon, Diana out there?

"Give a man a gun and he thinks he's Superman........Give him two and he thinks he's God."

Post by badlittlekitten on Dec 7, 2013 19:56:33 GMT -6

Dump Matsumoto! Ha, I need to check out that match, sounds interesting to say the least. I'm not surprised that you didn't think that Toyota looked any good in it. She's flat out depressing to watch these days, although I've never been a fan of hers anyway to be honest. The last time I saw Aja was at Chikara's joshimania event where she totally outshone all the younger girls on the card. I'm not too keen on the modern scene myself. Kana, Yoshiko and (on occasion) Kyoko Kimura are pretty much the only girls to debut in the last ten years that I have time for. It's all about 80s AJW for me. Those early nineties inter-promotional cards were full of classic matches, work rate~! and AKIRA HOKUTO, but the bonkers charm of the 80s is where my heart lies. I love the cheesy songs, the descents into chaos, the swimsuits, the dodgy haircuts, the production music, THE fans, the chaos . .

Post by Woo on Dec 7, 2013 21:00:24 GMT -6

Your not a fan of Tomoko or Hiroyo? Have you seen Hiroyo's adorable English promos? lol. I also thought Ayumi was one of the best new talents of the last decade honestly. Kana is great and promotes herself like no other female talent today, but I actually think Ayumi was the better all-rounder.

I haven't seen any of the 80's stuff yet, I'm still fairly new to Joshi, but I did see Akira/Kyoko, Bull/Kong and Toyota & Yamada/Ozaki & Kansai from Dream Rush on Youtube and they were all brilliant and the main event tag match was phenomenal.

I also saw all of Dreamslam 1 on Youtube (yeah I know 20 years late!). Here's my thoughts on the legendary card:

- Plum Mariko and Hikari Fukuoka vs. Sakie Hasegawa and Kaoru ItoGreat way to open the show. I'd seen Hasegawa and Hikari already from the great Thunderqueen AJW vs JPW match and am a big fan of both, but this was my first time watching the other two and the looked good too. I never got how the footstomp move doesn't hurt and Ito does like five in a row and then off the top rope. It's insane.

- Saemi Numata and Terri Power vs. Shark Tsuchiya and Crusher MaedomariYeah, Shark and Crusher both kind of suck, though they just look so damn badass that I don't dislike them. The match wasn't very good as you'd expect with the FMW girls and Terri had a bad arm to make things even worse.

- KAORU and Ultima Tigrita vs. Mima Shimoda and Tomoko WatanabeThis was a total mess. First time I've seen Tigrita and KAORU and I thought KAORU looked awful here and I lay most of the blame of the blown spots on her.

- Etsuko Mita and Suzuka Minami vs. Miki Handa and Rumi KazamaThe AJW vs LLPW matches seemed to have the most heat out of all the rivalries here and the crowd were red hot for this. I remember before the match started that Rumi glares at Mita and Minami and looks awesome... then I saw her wrestle and damn it was bad. I don't know if she was having a bad day here Rumi blew every spot in the last five minutes. Not good.

- Cuty Suzuki and Mayumi Ozaki vs. Takako Inoue and Kyoko InoueAMAZING. Probably the best match on the card. Possibly the best match on the possibly best card ever. Yeah it's great.

- Aja Kong and Bull Nakano vs. Eagle Sawai and Harley SaitoDecent stuff here. Aja and Bull are incredible as we all know but I'd never seen the two LLPW girls before. I don't remember much from Eagle, but Harley won me over and I can pinpoint the exact moment too- when she stole Bull's nunchucks and started whirling them round her head like a ninja. Fantastic moment which the crowd loved (despite her being an outsider) and that I rewound three times! Bull's terrified reaction completely makes Harley too. The match itself could have been better though.

- Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu KandoriWhile the tag match is the best from match quality, the story (and yes- the blood. Oh god the blood!) elevate this above it for me. It wasn't just Akira's shocking blood loss though, but her selling of the arm was some of the best I've ever seen as it really looked like she was trying to escape Kandori's submissions. Also the start of the match was one of the best things I've seen too. They circle eachother and them BAM right hand by Akira nearly knocksout Shinobu! Akira gets lots and lots of praise for this match but Kandori held her own for sure.

- WWWA World Tag Team Championship: Manami Toyota and Yamada vs. Kudo and Combat ToyotaI really wish the Kandori/Hokuto match was the main event as this wasn't the way to end such a brilliant show and I think some of the blame must go to Combat. Everyone else seemed really up for it and the Kudo/Toyota interactions were very heated (a match that never took place sadly) and Kudo had some good moments with Yamada (the part where Yamada is standing on the table glaring and Combat and then Kudo just shoves her off is hilarious!) but for whatever reason, be it miscommunication, the fact they'd never worked together before or Toyoda being uncooperative this was damn messy at times.

All in all one of the best cards I've ever seen with two genuine matches of the decade candidates. This remains the only show that Dave Meltzer has given two ***** matches too (Wrestlemania X was just a quarter of a star away from joining it).

Onto Dreamslam 2 then!

"Give a man a gun and he thinks he's Superman........Give him two and he thinks he's God."

Post by badlittlekitten on Dec 8, 2013 4:56:14 GMT -6

Your not a fan of Tomoko or Hiroyo? Have you seen Hiroyo's adorable English promos? lol. I also thought Ayumi was one of the best new talents of the last decade honestly. Kana is great and promotes herself like no other female talent today, but I actually think Ayumi was the better all-rounder.

I enjoy Tomoko's act and I think Ayumi and 3S were great additions to Shimmer, they're just not people I would go out of my way to watch. To me, Joshi is a style that started to eat itself a long time ago and I find most of the modern stuff tedious to get through. Too many bland pretty girls doing lots of stuff very fast for no particular reason. It all feels interchangeable.

That's why I like Kana. Not only does she look like she could **** you up but she carries herself like a star and has an aura about her. Like Chigusa and Kandori and Hotta did. Lots of good matches too.

Post by Goddess of Cats on Dec 18, 2013 23:11:32 GMT -6

Post by dafalcon on Dec 21, 2013 10:01:06 GMT -6

This may be the wrong place for this posting, but it talks exclusively about Joshi women:SHIMMER has done exceedingly well since 2010 bringing in joshi talent. I feel blessed to have seen Ayako, Ayumi, Misaki, Yumi, Tomoka, Hiroyo, Yuu, Hikaru, and of course Kana in the past four years. Thank you, Dave! I realize that Ayako seems to be the one recommending new talent, but I'm sure others weigh in as well. It's not surprising that we see mostly Joshi4Hope, WAVE, and OZ Academy women at SHIMMER. I would love to see Mio Shirai make the trip to Berwyn soon. I think she could be a great heel, like Tomoka is. I would love to see Hanako Nakamori (JWP) and Syuri (free) make SHIMMER appearances, and Satomura (Sendai) would be a treat as well. Here's to the burgeoning Joshi scene at SHIMMER for years to come!

Post by stevea21 on Dec 21, 2013 13:13:04 GMT -6

OK, one you many Shimmer fans that know a ton about the Joshi scene - which are the main promotions and what are their main characteristics?

Do some promotions have an emphasis on "hard-core" wrestling? Do some focus on comedy more than others? Ice Ribbon has a mixture of established wrestlers and students, I believe. Is that right? I find it very difficult to differentiate between the various promotions just checking out youtube vids. Feel free to point me to a website if there's a good one that breaks it down.

Post by dafalcon on Dec 24, 2013 22:23:24 GMT -6

January holds a new adventure for a SHIMMER roster member and Joshi wrestling expert Mia Yim. She travels to Manila, Philippines, to take on triple crown champion, Syuri, who is half Filipina. The Joshi+Jam manila event is an effort to raise awareness of pro wrestling in the Philippines using a current joshi superstar with Filipina heritage, but it is also a fundraiser for Typhoon Yolanda victims. Mia and Syuri have very similar styles -- they are kick specialists. Syuri has solid MMA training and so has some lethal stikes and submission holds. Mia has greater size and strength and flying ability. It should be a great, great match! The people of the Philippines are in for a treat! You can learn more about the event by following this linkI have a blog entry here on the match as well

Post by Woo on Dec 29, 2013 7:54:30 GMT -6

OK, one you many Shimmer fans that know a ton about the Joshi scene - which are the main promotions and what are their main characteristics?

Do some promotions have an emphasis on "hard-core" wrestling? Do some focus on comedy more than others? Ice Ribbon has a mixture of established wrestlers and students, I believe. Is that right? I find it very difficult to differentiate between the various promotions just checking out youtube vids. Feel free to point me to a website if there's a good one that breaks it down.

I'm no expert, but I'd say Oz Academy are the most hardcore of the Joshi promotions, they also tend to have the most of the 90's Joshi legends on the cards. JWP is main promotion with the most prestiges championship in Joshi. Ice Ribbon and Stardom do tend to have younger women on their rosters, though Stardom do have a tendency to hire models first then train them to be wrestlers. Looking at Pro Wrestling Wave's last few cards they seem to have more freelancers than other promotions and have a lot of the Shimmer talent there such as Hamada, Ohka, Matsumoto, Nakagawa, Mizunami etc. Sendai Girls actually only have 4 women on their roster page, but it includes tag team Dash Chisako and Sendai Sachiko who are one of the best tag teams in Japan today. Then there is Wrestling New Classic with Syuri as its current champion, but the roster is pretty much her and Lin Byron (Ray's unmasked bitch persona). Lastly there's Pro Wretling Diana formed by (and possibly a vanity project of) Kyoko Inoue which have a few legends and younger talent like Sareee.

Hope that's all accurate!

That Mia Yim vs Syuri match should be good, Syuri is one of my favourites in Japan currently and Mia Yim is improving leaps and bounds.

Post by dafalcon on Dec 31, 2013 15:27:18 GMT -6

I think Woo did a great job breaking down the basics. If you are not connected to International Joshi Fans on Facebook www.facebook.com/groups/194088440621350/?fref=ts you will not get the latest information. This Joshi fans discussion board too joshifans.com/joshifansforum/index.php (both sites are in English). WNC headed by Tajiri (replacing the old SMASH promotion) also has Makoto and Kaho Kobayashi as regulars. It was just announced that WNC is combining with REINA. REINA also has Syuri as champ and they have partnered with CMLL to get regular Mexican talent in Japan. Gatoh-Move is the project of Emi Sakura after she left Ice Ribbon and is based in Thailand. Osaka Joshi Pro (based in Osaka) has certain masked characters that can be played by various joshi stars (whoever is available) as well as regulars like Sawako Shimono and Ninja Ranmaru.

Post by stevea21 on Dec 31, 2013 17:50:26 GMT -6

Post by ratetankmark on Jan 11, 2014 9:00:17 GMT -6

Does Hailey Hatred count as a joshi because I think that's where she spent a good bulk of her career before she vanished off the face of the earth, her stuff as a heel in Japan with Kyoko was great, Hatred is one of those girls who would have been phenomenal as a heel in Shimmer although she's good regardless if she's a heel or a face, I just find her more entertaining as a heel.

Post by dafalcon on Jan 11, 2014 11:36:09 GMT -6

I love Hailey! She had years of big-time wrestling in Japan, including the JWP title. I think she held four belts at the height of her career. She would have been considered a gaijin wrestler (foreigner) even though she spoke Japanese well and lived in the country for years. Other gaijin that have spent months in country are Dark Angel (Sarah Stock), Jenny Rose, and Kellie Skater. Like Hailey, Sarah has also spent time in Mexico and speaks Spanish well too.